Poor old Thomas Weelkes
does not even rate a separate entry
in the current Penguin Guide
or Gramophone Guide. Nor do any
Nimbus recordings feature in either
publication, though the company has
now been back on its feet for several
years. Does this mean that the present
recording is not worth hearing? Not
a bit of it – Weelkes is rather an under-rated
composer but his music is well worth
hearing – it’s more a sad reflection
of the fact that neither of these guides
is as useful as they used to be.

If you look up Weelkes
in the musical textbooks, you will find
a variety of opinions – ranging from
the common view that his madrigals are
well worth hearing but his church music
is too conventionally Anglican to be
of any value, to that expressed in the
notes to this Nimbus CD, that the thrilling
textures, ravishing sonorities, exhilarating
rhythms and marvellously spicy harmonies
have won his music a secure place in
the cathedral repertory. He was a controversial
figure in his own day, dismissed by
the authorities at Chichester Cathedral
for drunkenness, swearing and blasphemy,
and the value of his music continues
to be questioned.

Perhaps the problem
for us as listeners and for Weelkes
himself is that the Anglican choral
tradition had already become too secure
and comfortable by his time. Maybe he
threw over the traces because he was
bored. Several of the cadences on this
recording sound rather routine, as if
concocted from ingredients which Byrd
and others had already prepared.

While Weelkes may not
be my desert-island choice among Tudor
and Jacobean composers – Tallis and
Byrd would, of course head that list
and Weelkes’s contemporary Orlando Gibbons
would be on it – I certainly would not
wish to be without him. Certainly, if
I went to Choral Evensong in Christ
Church and heard one of these anthems
sung as well as they are on this recording,
occasional fluffs apart, which did not
worry me, I should think the journey
had been well worth making.

There are two budget-price
competitors. A recording from the Oxford
Camerata directed by Jeremy Summerly
(Naxos 8.553209) contains six of the
anthems on the present recording. Honours
overall are about even between Darlington
and Summerly, bearing in mind the usual
swings-and-roundabouts distinction between
boy trebles as against experienced adult
professional singers and the difference
in sizes between the two ensembles –
there are more boy choristers in the
Christ Church Choir than the total membership
of the Oxford Camerata on this recording.

A recent reissue on
the Hyperion Helios label (CDH55259)
offers the Magnificat and Nunc
Dimittis from Weelkes’s Evening
Service for trebles, coupled with twelve
anthems, six of them in common with
those on the Nimbus recording. This
recording has recently been well received
on Musicweb (see review);
the combination of Winchester Cathedral
Choir and David Hill is almost a guarantee
of its quality. As Weelkes held an appointment
at Winchester College, though not at
the Cathedral so far as is known, a
Winchester recording of his music is
especially appropriate.

Five anthems occur
on all three recordings. Those who want
the Ninth Service canticles (Nimbus
only) the Evening Service for trebles
(Hyperion only) and A remembrance
of my friend Thomas Morley, a most
strikingly original piece (Naxos only)
– all well worth hearing – will, therefore,
find themselves with a considerable
number of duplications.

The first two anthems
on this Nimbus CD neatly juxtapose the
two sides of Weelkes’s music, the lively
and the meditative, the latter usually
less conventional and more interesting
than the former. In Alleluia, I heard
a voice, though the Winchester choristers
take the work at a faster speed, which
might seem more appropriate, the Christ
Church version is all that one could
wish for. Summerly takes it a good deal
more slowly than either, stressing the
majestic and declamatory aspect of the
words and music rather than their sheer
joyfulness of this Eastertide or Ascensiontide
work. (One manuscript ascribes it to
All Saints Day, which also seems possible.)

In Give ear, O Lord,
Darlington is again slower than Hill,
thereby achieving a fine, affective
performance of this plea for God’s mercy.
The Oxford Camerata are again slower
than either: I should prefer their version
were it not for the fact that the Christ
Church soloists sing so beautifully
yet blend so harmoniously with the rest
of the choir.

In Hosanna to the
Son of David, the three versions
adopt a very similar tempo. Here I do
have a definite preference for Summerly
– more sprightly yet not lacking in
dignity.

When David Heard
and Give the King thy Judgements
see fairly extreme disagreements over
tempo, with Darlington the slowest in
both. Summerly, though considerably
faster, still manages to capture the
affective quality of David’s lament
for his son Absalom in this piece probably
composed to mark the death of King James’s
son Henry. Free from comparison, however,
Darlington’s versions of both pieces
stand up well, the soloists in Give
the King as effective and well integrated
with the rest of the choir as was the
case in Give Ear.

It is not at all clear
why Weelkes wrote Gloria in Excelsis
Deo, since this bilingual piece
duplicates much of the Gloria
sung at the end of Holy Communion in
the 1559 rite, but could not properly
be substituted for it owing to variations
in the text. Presumably it was a Christmas
anthem, which is how it is performed
on An Elizabethan Chorus, music
for various occasions in the church’s
year sung by St Paul’s Cathedral Choristers
directed by Grayston Burgess, with a
youthful Andrew Davis at the organ.
This very interesting anthology of music
by Byrd and Weelkes, with readings from
the Elizabethan Bishops’ Bible, which
last surfaced on a budget-price recording
(Belart 450 141-2), though apparently
no longer available, is well worth searching
out. Perhaps Arkiv would like to add
it to their catalogue?

If nothing else, that
Grayston Burgess recording demonstrated
that the Weelkes pieces included there,
Hosanna to the Son of David,
Gloria in Excelsis Deo, O
Lord Arise and Alleluia, I heard
a voice, can hold their heads up
in the company of Byrd’s music.

Darlington’s lively
performance of Gloria in Excelsis,
slightly faster than Hill’s, would have
made a good conclusion to the recording,
though the programme has a logic of
its own, ending as it does with Nunc
Dimittis, the last canticle of the
final office of the day.

O Lord Grant the
King sounds rather uninspired by
comparison with Byrd’s O Lord Make
Thy Servant Elizabeth and the five-part
Evening Service is also mainly unadventurous,
though it contains some unconventional
moments. The Ninth Service, a large-scale
setting probably composed for the Chapel
Royal, in the tradition of Byrd’s Great
Service, is a worthy successor to that
great predecessor. These two canticles
form a fitting conclusion to the CD
and serve as a foil to the simpler settings
of the same canticles from the five-part
Evening Service earlier on the disc.
The Ninth Service Nunc Dimittis
is unusually lengthy and elaborate –
even longer than Byrd’s in the Great
Service – with some adventurous harmonies.

Both services had to
be edited, as the surviving parts are
highly defective; David Wulstan’s editions
are employed here. Notwithstanding my
slight preference for the Oxford Camerata
versions of some pieces, for these four
works alone the Christ Church recording
is well worth having. As far as I am
aware, it is the only available recording
to contain them and the performances
are all good.

The Nimbus recording
is somewhat less immediate than that
on their Taverner CD which I recently
reviewed (NI5360 – see review)
and even less immediate than that on
their Sheppard recording (NI5480 – see
review).
For the current recording the volume
needed a 4 or 5 dB boost before it began
to sound natural, and even then the
sound was rather more recessed than
I should have liked. Perhaps the Ambisonic
UHJ encoding is part of the problem.
The separation between the two sides
of the choir, Decani and Cantoris,
is well conveyed.

Anthony Rooley, with
the Consort of Musicke (Gaudeamus CDGAU195
- see review)
offers a wholly recommendable selection
of Weelkes’s Madrigals and Anthems.
This CD, though apparently no longer
available, is worth looking out for
– some dealers may still have a copy.

Hosanna to the Son
of David and Gloria in Excelsis
are included on a recent mid-price set
of hearteningly committed performances
of Great Tudor Anthems (GCCD
4053 – see review).

A CD of Verse Anthems
from Bull to Boyce (Deux-Elles DXL853
- see review), containing Weelkes’s Give
ear) is also well worth investigating.

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